Pakistan freeing up fighters for the Taliban

I don't really know what to make of this, but it seems significant.

KABUL, Afghanistan - The Pakistani military is striking truces with Islamic separatists along the country's border with Afghanistan, freeing Pakistani militants and al-Qaida fighters to join Taliban insurgents battling U.S.-led troops and government forces in Afghanistan.....

The Pakistani regime of Gen. Pervez Musharraf has been negotiating truces - with the Bush administration's encouragement - with Islamic separatists in North Waziristan and South Waziristan, mountainous tribal areas along the Afghan border where U.S. officials think bin Laden may be hiding.

In return, Pakistani officials are promising to restrict the country's troops in the area to major bases and towns and to pour huge amounts of aid - much of it from the United States and other nations - into the destitute region, according to American officials.

But as the truces take hold, separatists have been crossing into Afghanistan to fight alongside Taliban and al-Qaida fighters, according to Western and Afghan officials.

So, what is the US trying to do by encouraging these "truces?" I would assume the flow of fighters into Afghanistan is a secondary but expected consequence which means the overall goal is bigger.

Part of some long term plan to take the fire out of the resistance? Maybe some backhanded way to get at Bin Laden? It would seem counterproductive to either.

My first guess would be that Musharraf's government is more wobbly than presented and that this is intended to take some of the steam out of the Sunni opposition that penetrates into his military, but I just don't know.

I just can't shake the feeling that this is telling me something very important.

(And, in the area, "Opium cultivation in Afghanistan is spiraling out of control, rising 59 percent this year to produce a record 6,100 tons — nearly a third more than the world's drug users consume, the U.N. said Saturday. "

And, a NATO plane went down killing 14 British troops. A Taleban spokesman said it was shot down with a Stinger anti-aircraft missile (thanks, Ron Reagan) which the British deny, although a witness "reported seeing a small fire at the back of the plane before it hit the ground.")

Generally, I'm beginning to get that vague "significant point" feeling about Afghanistan that I felt about Iraq two months ago.